Indianapolis- from www.indystar.com - Former cop and City-County Councilman Lincoln Plowman's [pictured] trial this month featured nearly everything you could want in a public corruption case. Wiretaps. Bluster. Tears. Undercover FBI agents. Allegedly dirty money. An allegedly dirty politician. If that weren't enough, the case against Plowman, who was convicted, was set in the seedy world of the city's strip clubs.
A mystery novelist coloring the scene couldn't have come up with any more cliches. For added effect, the dialogue that emerged out of the courtroom each day was priceless.
"I used to be in charge of vice, vice for the whole city, and, you know, best job I've had in my life," Plowman said in the transcript of one undercover recording. He adds: "I'm blowing your money to go drink and have hookers rub on me. I mean, blowing taxpayers' money? What better job can you have?"
As the star at the center of this circus, Plowman was portrayed by his own words -- at least those that can be printed in a family newspaper -- as equal parts buffoon and braggart.
The scandal drove Plowman from both his council seat and his position with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. His words are both over-the-top ridiculous and politically scandalous. The stream of courthouse stories has been more interesting than any crime drama on TNT.
Of course, I understand this is serious business. We all should be offended. At the core of the charges against Plowman was an abuse of the public trust. He's another example of why so many people have so little faith in the people who serve them. The verdict serves as a warning for other public officials; the charges against him -- centering on his efforts to grease the zoning process for an FBI agent who posed as a strip club developer -- carry the possibility of decades in prison.
It's bothersome, to put it mildly, to think a police officer and elected official would do what Plowman was convicted of doing. But this case also was downright entertaining. And it was a reminder that you don't need to be a member of Mensa to serve on the City Council.
"It's no secret. I'm gonna put some in my pocket," Plowman said, according to another transcript, referring to money coming his way from the federal agent. "But I'll probably throw 50 percent of it around, you know?"
At one point, Plowman boasts that "I control the zoning," referring to his appointed position on a city zoning board.
He also offered simple advice -- free booze! -- in describing how to get cops to look the other way in strip bars.
Authorities pointed to $5,200 that Plowman agreed to take from the federal agent, who told the then-councilman he wanted to open a high-end strip joint Downtown. Plowman's defense was that he was simply an honest entrepreneur who wanted to build a side business as a consultant to strip clubs. Even if that were true, as a police officer and an elected official, he deserved to be convicted of sliminess.
"I mean, the point is," he told the undercover agent at one point, "I do stuff and I get paid."
Yep. And sometimes you do stuff and end up sobbing on the witness stand, as Plowman did the week before his conviction.
